Fireproof Sweat picks up the torch from the groups second album, Vivr (2016, La Rpublique des Granges), though where Vivr fights and shouts, Fireproof Sweat wonders what for.

Ten years ago, a fire took the lives of four of our friends on rue Myrha in Paris, just a few months after Urs Graf Consort was founded. One of them Nicolas Millet, a magnificent bookseller and Flix Fnon specialist was meant to be our bassist. The title Fireproof Sweat, and the album as a whole, questions how surviving the death of friends outliving collective dynamics that death puts an end to can carry with it the fear of betraying who we used to be, the fear of gradually losing our freedom. Vivr, whose tracks were written both before and after that fire, was about fighting and shouting to stay vibrant with the will to live that preceded the crime. Fireproof Sweat, written after the mourning had passed, is its cerebral and anguished counterpart about feeling uncomfortable with where you end up, and about repentance and regret in the face of everyday life.

Writing in Italian allowed for a kind of nave retour aux sources and opened up a more subjective form of songwriting. Percussionist Camille Emaille and drummer Francesco Pastacaldi each make their first appearance in the group, lending spacious restraint and gorgeous texture, and when paired with the brass of Gabriel Bristow and Simon Sieger they form an irresistibly light touch quartet. Led by the curious invention of singer Adrien Bardi Bienenstock and violinist Prune Bcheau (also cited as performing mermaid calls), musically Fireproof Sweat is the most direct Urs Graf record to date, yet its theme is one of loss; the bacchanalia of 2020s Uva Ursi replaced by introspection.

A1. Bacalhau
A2. Moon
A3. Tute Bianchi
A4. Usury
B1. No Hope, No Hope
B2. Parachute
B3. Sun
B4. El Dorado